The Herald Sun review highlighting the extravagant salary packages paid to Victoria’s Municipal Chief Executives has highlighted yet again the need for more open and transparency in providing public access to public documentation in a cost effective and efficient manner.

The Herald Sun reported that the city of Whitehorse and Maribyrnong refused to make available information pertaining to the disclosure of Senior Management’s salaries packages. under the provisions of the Local Government regulations details of salary pakages and remuneration over 100,000 per year must be recorded in a register which in turn must be made available for public inspection. inspection of the register is a right of all members of the public and there is no basis in which the information can be withheld.

With the advent of the internet there is no reason, technical or administrative why this information can not and should not be made available via the internet. Appropriate security and validation checks can be provided for.

Clearly the State Government needs to review its legislative requirements to ensure that all public documentation and information is readily available via the internet. there is no excuse for the petty games of avoidance by trying to restrict access to this information by making it difficult to access.

What do they have to hide and what gain is there from maintaining such an inefficient system.